Education is of Crucial Importance in the West and in the East
Association of Montenegrin Banks attended regular meeting of the International Coordination Council of the Banking Associations of the Commonwealth of Independent States, Central and Eastern Europe (International Banking Council) in period from 17 to 19 May 2017 in Belgrade. The Association of Montenegrin Banks has been the member of this Council since 2015. The main topic referred to the growing role of national banking associations in the financial education and literacy programmes, whereby the banking indicators and economic trends if member countries were also presented at this meeting.
The representatives from Montenegro presented their inclusion in the education this year through the promotion of the European Money Week, where a step forward has been made with the cooperation of the CBCG compared to the previous period. The education is important for both the youngest population, students from elementary and high schools, and for the users and providers of the banking services and representatives of media. The Association will organise a separate seminar in autumn that will be dedicated to the journalists that cover the economic and financial area. In the cooperation with the renowned consultant company from Germany the Association is preparing booklets, which will be used for education purposes of all users of financial services. These booklets will be used for introducing users of financial services with the terminology and procedures in the banking sector. Economic conditions and problems in operations were discussed at this meeting in accordance with the discussions and conclusions of the European Banking Federation, where the Association has been a full member since 2007. The Association reacted promptly by bringing experts from Europe and using reputable audit firms for organising seminars and workshops which discussed the most current topics, like the introduction of the new accounting standard IFRS 9, detail introduction with the Basel III standards and announcement to banks of the Basel IV which preparation is pending, as well as business intelligence and document management system, and workshops on the prevention of money laundering. End of May and June are dedicated to seminars on new protocols of the SWIFT, international payment system and protection against cyber-criminal, which will be lectured by experts from Brussels.
The Association has been also working on the improvement of infrastructure framework, which will provide the promptness of data important for passing lending decisions in retail and corporate sectors as well as creating database that may indicate timely trends and adequate responses of the bankers. Special attention is paid to workshops on digital banking, which represents a reality in the world, systems of protection and clearing, where Montenegro is given an opportunity to be the leader in the region in the cooperation with reputable international provider. The participants to the meeting especially commended magazine published by the Association as the only magazine published in the banking and economic professional area, which will soon celebrate ten years of publishing professional banking and economic articles.
